The Parade
by People On Packets
Summary: A spellbinding account of the debauched massacre of a planet - experience the sights, sounds and temptations of a world consumed by chaos!


The Parade

Panic is a hard thing to trace. You remember the initial flash, the first image. But the rest is a blur. In my case, the first image was man shattering his head with a bullet and a woman - maybe his wife - ripped in half. That's what got me going.

Fear had been building all day. A steady reservoir from which that moment of panic would burst. It's hard not to get apprehensive when things start falling from the sky. Not like asteroids or comets. But with a purpose. A slow, steady, controlled descent. A goal.

You watched them in a kind of delayed daze. Followed their delicate tendrils through the sky and waited for the impact. You thought it would be loud, maybe shattering, but it wasn't. A murmur was all you got. This wasn't the sound of something smashing into the planet - a one and done grand finally. Something was settling in. Meaning to stay for a while.

You could almost hear old Jed Clampett: "why don't you sit and stay a spell?".

A funny thing happens when multiple objects land amidst your city - you do nothing.

At least that is, until you start hearing screams. Explosions and howls and shattering screams. Not the kind you've heard before - not even at the worst movie you can think of. These are the kind people blast out when they know there is no point in screaming for help. When they are screaming for God.

Faces stared out at spiralling black smoke from office windows. Rows of faces wearing the same expression. Overload. When we made eye contact, the expression remained. Just two human computers giving each other the blue screen.

I held this moment for a while, there was a calmness in this last, final ignorance. Laughter brought me back. Warped, twisted, gleeful laughter. The kind that has been chained inside a metal hulk for centuries. Finally freed - you heard it echo in every cry. Play time.

I glanced down the street - a man had blown his head off and something, _something _had torn a woman apart. Blood, bile and entrails spilled out. Above the torn body, a face from childhoods nightmares let loose a bellowing cry. Then like xanax with alcohol, everything blurred.

...

The office was dark - an inner sanctum of cubicles. No windows. Despite the walls, carnage still sounded from the streets. It was muffled. Like a tornado over a storm shelter. Only the wind carried voices. Cries of death and delight. A nightmarish mixtape put on rerun. The kind of thing you imagine Satanists put on while they do the dishes.

I was at the center of that whirling disc. Safe for a moment.

A crash from outside the office door checked my introspection. Laughter. Screeching and crawling like it wanted to rip off the wallpaper. I was ready to run. To fly off anywhere just for the sake of it. The laughter was driving me insane _but_ the voices finally did it. Shocked me into stasis.

They were a kind of bloated garble that soothed into the air. Sickly honey more than blood-lust. Sensations set off all over my body. Fear, lust, greed. Fantasies. Muffles emerged from the molasses syrup of their voices. A woman. They pitched high, threatening to break into screams. Frenzy gripped the voices - soaring in frequency until they bled into screeching howls. Howls of pure ecstasy. I could hear the woman struggle, her muted cries turned into gargled wretches. Finally everything died down. Just deep exhales.

I sat idle.

Tired and lumbering, the creatures moved off. Whispering.

I couldn't stay here. A primordial instinct told me to move. And the stench from what a few moments before had been a woman was unbearable. That and something more. That fucking saccharine smell, so sweet and sick. I was going somewhere. But not that way.  
I darted towards the other end of the office. My mind sharpened into an adrenalin fueled scalpel. Cutting a path through desks and doors. I turned a corner and stood shocked.

A window.

Outside raged the horrors of hell. A world raped of everything save it's tattered flesh and bones. Minds made useless through insanity or bludgeoning. The energy and life sucked out and mawed. You could feel it in the air.

There was no hope. The things that invaded my office were only an advance guard. Down the street a horrible procession was coming forward. Torches and screams and laughter. Pieces of flesh hurled around, periodic spouts of blood. Madness touched everything. People carved their own eyes out, others mutilated themselves while wretched with convulsions. Everywhere screams.

I watched in refrained terror. At the start of the column were what looked like jesters. Horrible twisted figures. Flagrantly debauched colors and jagged smiles carved into their faces. Severed heads juggled while they danced and laughed. Their skill was stupefying. A rotator belt of heads and limbs flew through their arms - all the while maintaining a delicate grace. Other creatures blew massive warped horns, creating sounds of brass and death. A massive molten structure was dragged through the middle, taking a shape neither male or female. Yet totally alluring - a mash of all pleasure and fantasy. Below its belly raged fires. Blistering pyres that turned the sculpture into a furnace of deep orange. At its top was a hatch - I watched as men, women and children were forced in. Their wails flowing through a ghastly constructed mouth. A horrible baying - the smell of scorched flesh.

...

I stood transfixed. It could have been hours - it could have been seconds. When reality snapped back in, I felt a shudder of adrenalin course through my body. I wanted to cower, to huddle in a foetal position and just wait. Wait for it all to end. It _had_ to end. A glance at the buildings lining the street stripped away that notion.

The fiends were rushing into each one with huge torches - flame throwers. I watched the bottom floors light-up, then lick upwards. Draping each structure in a cape of flames. People came streaming out from smoke filled windows and doors. Moles just like me - thinking they could "wait" for the nightmare to pass. Waiting for the sun to shed this darkness.

Some were consumed by flames, others toppled by hoards of deformed creatures - caricatures of their molten god. Screeches of delight blistered through the air. Still others shambled in a drug like daze - their minds crumbled, an empty husk. These were horded into lines and led backwards, into the scorching column.

On my side of the causeway were periodically spaced telephone poles. These were eagerly put to use by the oncoming horde. Flayed bodies nailed in heaps - most still alive. Their bare muscles and torn faces contorting in stretched agony. The sheer horror was overwhelming.

I was no longer a "man". Like the things tearing the city apart - I was an animal. They were bent on destruction - I on survival. Retracing my steps, I reached the door outside of which I had heard the woman's slaughter. I tore it open. I can't describe the sight - a body torn in such savage yet deliberate ways it breached comprehension.

I ripped off my clothes. All of them. Naked and streaming with sweat I grabbed gobs and pieces and flung them on. Saccharine pools of _something_ dripped into her and on the floor. I made use of these. Slapping the sweetly revolting substance over my gore covered skin, hair, eyes and ears. I drenched myself in it - lapped it up like a mad dog. I ran outside.

A telephone pole stood in front of me. Metal pegs, carefully spaced, reached to the top. The march was almost upon me - easily within eyesight. Yet I knew - somehow felt - that they couldn't see me. It was like a blind and bloody tongue flailing and supping up all around it. But it couldn't see - just reach out and taste.

I climbed the pole with wreck-less speed. The pegs tore into my feet. I barely noticed. Reaching the top, I flung my arms around the suspended cables and rested my feet on the final peg. My body prostrate. Droplets of blood mixed with sweat dripped from my toes. I waited. Watched.

...

I thought I could trick myself into thinking it was all a fantasy. Close the shutters and hide. But aromas slammed into me. Not just smells but couriers drenched in sensation. Waves of bliss surged and crashed upon me. First from outside - then from within. I was enveloped in cloud of pure intoxication. The grimace I had tried to portray slipped into a lazy smile. My eyes glazed. Shivers of warmth ran all over. I gazed like a child at the coming parade.

What seemed so horrible and revolting coalesced into a mirage or spurting pleasure. Joys for the body, mind, and senses. Screams weren't scathing - they were warm currents lacing through a river. Moments of pleasure to suck up and enjoy. Eyes filled with terror and dread glowed like Christmas lights. You turned from set to set - looking for the most impressive. A holocaust melted into a pageantry of exquisite brilliance.

Figures twisted and moved. Undulating in impossibly tempting postures. Chemicals dazed my muscles - forced them into motionless. But how I wanted to jump down from my perch. To drink and slurp - feast and love. Yes love. It flowed through every atom, consumed the atmosphere. I loved it all - wanted it all. The eyes of that great molten idol stared into mine, filling me with radiance. The screams from it's mouth echoed and cooed. Whispering "I'll take care of you, fold within me". My being surged through hills and valleys but always towards those eyes. That voice.

A floating zigguaraat followed the gleaming sculpture. Intricately woven with patterns of beauty. A giant fresco - a palace of supreme art. Colors cut and splintered from every corner, twinkling through my eyes. A neon altar. Enthroned on top - in robes of fluid colors - lounged the personification of lust. A figure made of dreams and fantasies. It was anything you desired - pure allurement. Desire wafted from it's body like perfume.

It curled its head and gazed into my eyes. Raising a delicate hand - it halted the procession. Doe eyes gleamed as it lifted a chalice, dipped it into a fragrant pool and held it to my lips. Ever so slightly, the chalice tipped. Pure ecstasy. Every sensation magnified a hundred fold. I slipped into a pool as every cell cried with bliss. My eyes-lids wavered. Straining for a moment before slipping into sweet embrace.

...

I woke up in a daze. My mind fragmented by snap shots. Images of blood and gore. Of ecstasy and pleasure. They came in sparse jolts. Bifurcated moments of time. Some things _were_ clear. Shockingly clear.

Shudders wracked me.

Not of regret or remorse but of pain. Maybe I hadn't realised at first - my haze shrouding things - but pangs of pain and frenzy shivered over my body. It was too much to bear. I began tearing at my skin. Trying to remove any receptor. A gentle stroke stopped me.

For the first time I realised where I was. It was like some grossly indulgent palace. Things lounged on ornate sofas, mats and enormous pillows. The same creatures that had danced and twisted impossibly. Warm breath oozed over my flesh. Convulsed by twitching, I craned my head back. A nightmarish face stretched in a grin. It raised a glass to my face. I knew the smell immediately. I gulped it down. The pangs and shivers washed away.

The face stretched wider.

I smiled. Looking at it this way - it wasn't scary at all. Just ornate. An acquired taste. I pushed the cup back and watched the drink finished off. Our eyes met, glossy and wide. It's skin tender and warm. My limbs were rubber - I couldn't sit up. We laid down. Melting into the room. Into each-other.


End file.
